Sarah Simmons

Sarah Simmons is a fiber and text based conceptual artist. She releases the untapped potential of objects, materials, and people by challenging their traditionally assigned purposes and roles.

Sarah holds a BFA with a concentration in metalsmithing and art education from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and an AA from Montgomery College in Maryland.

Sarah is a member of Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors and Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, The Brewhouse, Sweetwater Center for the Arts, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Museum Lab, Annemarie Sculpture Center, as well as with the Anthropology of Motherhood.

Sarah lives in Moon Township, Pennsylvania, where since 2016 she has grown her Bookgarden, a place where discarded books go to celebrate aging and experience unexpected self-transformation. She believes that words matter, how we communicate matters, and that literacy is a basic human right.

Statement

I collect and reuse abandoned materials, allowing them to tell their stories in a new way, setting free unrealized potential and disrupting stereotypical expectations of value and purpose. Collected words, books, and personal writings form the physical and philosophical foundation for my work as a text based conceptual artist.

Materials may sit in my studio for years waiting for their perfect companion. This companion could be words or another discarded item. Combined, they release latent and unexpected possibilities. Carefully chosen words can alter perceived worth and adjust expected storylines. Language allows for the reassignment of roles and opportunities for the viewer to examine objects and people more closely and in unexpected ways. Clothing, aprons, household items, paper doll silhouettes, and sewing feature prominently in my work as I utilize materials and methods traditionally assigned to women or caregivers.

Our use and throwaway society has boxed our goods and people into anticipated roles with limited lifespans of usefulness. We do not fix or repurpose the items that no longer work the way they were originally intended. We trivialize people who fill undervalued traditional societal functions as well as people who do not fit into accepted roles. My work claims these objects and people, elevating their perceived value through new narratives.

In September of 2016, I began growing my Bookgarden by stacking and shelving eight hundred discarded books along with hemlock logs, dirt, rocks, and bulbs in a one thousand square foot area in Western Pennsylvania. The Bookgarden offers a home to books that are no longer desired or relevant and gives them a chance to physically transform and interact in new ways with their surroundings. I document these books as they transition, celebrating the value of aging, self-reinvention, and unexpected physical transformation.

I have continued to cultivate the Bookgarden with additional plants, books, and discarded items, creating a spot for mushrooms, native plants, insects, and other creatures to make their home. As the books have weathered, text has become exposed then worn away to reveal additional layers. In turn those layers are worn away as well revealing the next pages. Each layer, exposure, weathering and final decomposition tell a story.

Now in its nineth year, the Bookgarden has grown to contain more than 2,000 books. While it began as part recycling project, part sculpture garden, part science experiment, I have begun to think of it an unconventional clock, allowing for alternative and unexpected ways to measure and identify time.